Monday

Barrie took Kasey to see "How to Train Your Dragon" yesterday, her first movie. Kasey was so wound up! She can't say "theater", so she told me she watched TV in a BIG house. Then she chattered about the dragon's tail, and Hiccup. And she told me Mom ate the pine cones all up. She meant popcorn. I think her mouth was going faster than her brain.

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I don't have any new pictures, so am posting one I took in the summer time. This trailer was parked down the street in the back part of the old Z's Inn lot. There were two mules, and two young girls. This girl worked and worked to get the mule loaded, and he was stubborn. The horse trailer had been unhitched and no adults were around.

When I looked out the window some time later, the trailer, mules and girls were all gone. I presumed the parents had come back.

Something interesting going on down at B&B Yamaha. Someone is cleaning up around the place! They've hauled off several big trailer loads of "stuff" from behind the building. I've never seen it cleaned up before. I wonder if someone bought it.

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Yes, I know everyone hates the snow. But it sure is pretty out there.

Happy Easter

Two More Sled Dog Portraits

This is Mustang.

Kimble's nose is crooked. I think it's a matter of the shading, or maybe the placement of her nostrils. Also, one eye is higher than the other.

This drawing was done with coloed pencils on Mylar, which is drafting film. It is a matte, translucent acetate/nylon surface. It takes colored pencil beautifully, it is erasable, and you can draw on the back. The wood tone on Kimble's house was done with brown tones, then I put orange on the back.

Saturday

Another typical Easter in Pinedale. Snowboots and coats required.

The Easter Bunny tracked our little front yard up early this morning, and left lots of eggs in the snow. Funniest thing, the tracks resembled Barrie's Sorel boots. He also hid some in the house.

Kasey really got into it this year, looking for eggs. So excited!

I was up at 4:00 this morning. Don't have a clue why I couldn't sleep. Maybe the Easter Bunny woke me up.

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Barrrie took Kasey to the Easter Egg Hunt at the Park. She said there were two cops there, and wondered why. Do they need crowd control at Easter Egg hunts like they do at kids' soccer games? Like, do the parents fight if their kid gets an egg grabbed from right under his nose?

Friday

Ah, a productive day. I finished income tax for both Barrie and me this morning, using Turbo Tax. I wanted to do them at the same time so we could do some "what ifs" regarding filing status, dependents, etc. We both came out really well.

Barrie hasn't seen hers yet. She will be happy.

And because I am getting some money back, I feel better about having the matting and framing done on my paintings. And to celebrate, I purchased four new songs from iTunes, and ordered some new books from Amazon. Oh yes, and new watercolor paint.

Life is good!



This is a photo a took a year or two ago up the Green. For some reason, this picture really appeals to me.

From way back. This is my Uncle Bill, my Mom's brother, and a pastel portrait I did of him.

April Fool?

A few days ago, the National Weather Service issued a dire winter storm warning. - 90% chance of 5 to 10 inches of snow by Wednesday morning. Then they cancelled it the next day. So today it is snowing. Do you think this is an April Fool joke?

I got two more paintings matted and framed this week. Hmmm. Seems all three of them are old cabins.

I think I'll have to take some things off the walls to make room for these.

Everyone in the art group is working from the same photo to see how many different interpreations we have of the same subject.

I started on it with paper I have never used before, and using "Inktense" watercolor pencils, which I have never used either. I put some masking tape on the surface to protect the roof line of the house, and when I took it off, the surface of the paper tore. So much for my first attempt.

My friend Dee C. came in at the end of class to visit. She had her little 3 year old grandson with her. I gave him the ruined painting, my watercolors, and a brush. He painted a masterpiece while Dee and I visited. Wish I had thought to take a picture of him. He loves to paint.

Tuesday

Cuck took me arrowhead hunting up Tourist Creek, out of Three Forks Park. He said he knew a place up there where there were lots of chips and some arrowheads. I think it was a "snipe hunt." We never even got to the place where the arrowheads were supposed to be. If he had left me here, I would probably still be up there. Really rough country.

Tracy and Seaweed on one of the pack trips into the mountains. Seaweed was a one-in-a-million horse. She was nicknamed "Charmin" because she was so soft. She would break into a sweat within the first mile. She was totally kid safe. Kelly, Tracy, Barrie and the Hittle girls all learned to ride on her.

Kelly and Tracy warming up by the fire at Lost Lake. This was a wet trip.

Last night the song "Delta Dawn" played on my iPod. And I thought of Kelly and Tracy. They rode miles through the mountains singing that song, over and over again!

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This is Barrie's friend Chris, at the Iditarod finish line in Nome. That's his lead dog, Vidalia with him.

Maddy Portrait Finished

Maddy, the Burmese Mountain Dog

I am finally finished with the drawing of Maddy. I can see a few spots that need more work, but it's pretty much complete.

Barrie saw a poster looking for a home for this dog, and guess what? Barrie and Kasey brought her home. She is a sweetie.

Cool, cloudy day today. But no wind.

Barrie has cleaned up the yard and the big flower bed. Looks really good. There are not many flowers left in there, but there is a beautiful pink peony bush. And a clump of a tall sedum that gets pink flower clusters on the top. I think there are also some white daisies.

Sunday

More Closet Pictures

This is another picture I took the day Tracy was baptised. She was not impressed with Father Zumach. The couple was Tracy's Godparents. If I hadn't written their name on the back, I wouldn't know who they were.



This picture shows the living room of our cabin at Ragged Mountain. Notice the bookshelf in front of the window. I had forgotten all about it until I saw it in this picture. I actually made that! I used some pieces of quakie branches with beaver teeth markings and some old barn wood. It was pretty wobbly.

There is a blue balloon by the telephone. Tracy kept wanting to call "Toby" on the phone, and we kept a balloon by the phone so she would leave it alone. She was terrified of balloons.

"Toby" was the old bachelor hired man who lived in a cabin down at the main ranch house.



Kind of jumping around in time here. I found an envelope in the box of old pictures, and this ticket to the bull fight in Juarez. I was in the University Marching Band, and we were at the Sun Bowl in El Paso. The bull fight was lots of fun. It was "amateur day," I think, and lots of scared would-be bullfighters turned and ran. I"m sure they didn't kill the bull.

A friend of mine read an article long ago about a famous bull fighter. He had grown up in poverty, and almost lived on oranges they picked off the trees around his house. As a result, his stomach was messed up, and he ended up with a permanent case of diarrhea. I'm not sure I believe this story. Think about it - a bull fighter with diarrha?

Saturday

Matted and Framed

I finally bit the bullet and had this painting matted and framed. Then I took two more to Ruth to have done. Yikes! ($$$$$). I don't have any of my own stuff hanging in my house except for an old pencil drawing. Maybe having these up will give me incentive to keep my brush wet!

A terrible picture of our art group on Wednesday. How I ever caught eveyone looking so serious, I'll never know. We are not a serious group. And Lenore isn't in this picture.

The cookies Vicky brings unfailingly are in a container on the table.

Good grief! Girly hands! Kasey loves finger nail polish, and her Mom fixed her up the other day.

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I really don't like spring in Pinedale. It is brown and ugly, it is still cold, and the wind blows. The trees are beginning to get their annual decoration of white plastic bags hanging from the branches.

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Doing nothing is very hard to do... You never know when you're finished.

How beautiful it is to do nothing and then rest afterwards." --Spanish proverb

Friday

Just look at this crew! Father Zumach is dressed in his robe, Tracy is wearing a dress and a bonnet, and I am wearing a dress and even have something over my head. This was in the days when you were supposed to cover your head in the Catholic Church.

And this picture was taken that night at the Rocky Mountain Hall at Fort Washakie. Tracy's cousin, Ben Lee, was dancing. Tracy was a cowgirl.

When I moved back to Wyoming from Arizona, I stopped at the Grand Canyon and rode a mule down to the river. This is Curly, a wrangler. Will someone tell me why I never took any pictures down in the canyon?

Coming back up from the river, a rattlesnake crawled across the trail, and Curly's mule spooked and ran off up the trail. The two kids behind me just hung on, and their mules turned around and went back down the trail. There were two riders in front of me, and their mules turned around and tried to go back down the trail too. I managed to hold my mule sideways in the trail, and we stayed there and blocked the two mules in front of us.

The other two mules then got worried, and came back. When Curly got back, he was sure glad to see us. We all had a beer together that night at the Bright Angel Lodge.